Asking prices for houses have jumped to a new record high of £308,151 on average in May, according to property website Rightmove, with some towns seeing ‘eye-watering’ increases.

Across England and Wales, the average price tag on a property coming to market has risen by £1,118 on last month, Rightmove said.

The price increase comes despite a three percentage point stamp duty hike for buy-to-let investors, imposed from April 1, which it was thought would take some heat out of the market.

The website said the price of an ‘entry level’ home with two bedrooms or fewer leapt by £11,298 over the last month alone to reach £194,224 on average. Homes in this bracket are typically sought after by both first-time buyers and buy-to-let investors.

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Inexorably higher: Asking prices for houses have jumped to a new record high of £308,151 on average in May, according to property website Rightmove, with some towns seeing ‘eye-watering’ increases

Miles Shipside, Rightmove director, said that a rush of buy-to-let investors snapping up properties before the April 1 stamp duty deadline had resulted in ‘a famine of suitable property and higher prices’.

He continued: ‘Estate agents have perhaps been focused on getting investor sales through to completion before the tax hike, and some may have been surprised by the continuing momentum and scarcity of stock to meet ongoing demand.

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‘The net effect is eye-watering increases in asking prices in some towns, and is further stretching first-time buyers' affordability even though they are competing against fewer buy-to-let investors in the market.’

Rightmove said the country's top hotspot was the London borough of Croydon, with Dartford also a popular area for people priced out of London.

Asking prices have been on an upward trajectory since the beginning of 2012, Rightmove figures suggest

Asking prices in the first-time buyer sector in Croydon have surged by 18.6 per cent on last year and now average £297,770.

Dartford has seen an 18.5 per cent jump in the average seller's asking price in the first-time buyer sector, which now stands at £244,310.

But some places have seen falls in asking prices for a typical first-time buyer home. In Llandudno in North Wales, the average asking price for a first-time buyer home has fallen by 7.5 per cent over the last year, to £145,703.

Across all property types across the regions, asking prices in London and the East of England have seen double-digit growth over the last year.

Asking prices in London have seen a 10.8 per cent annual increase, taking the average price in the capital to £644,088. In the East of England, asking prices have increased by 10.1 per cent annually to hit £334,538 on average.

RIGHTMOVE'S REGIONAL HOTSPOTS

Here are the regional hotspots with the highest and lowest annual increases in asking prices in the first time-buyer sector in May, according to Rightmove. The table shows the annual asking price change and the average asking price:

All regions have seen asking prices increase over the last year, with Wales seeing the smallest growth at 1.6 per cent. The average asking price in Wales is £181,579.

The Rightmove survey comes days after another report showed that demand for homes declined for the first time in over a year in April as many brought forward their purchases in March to beat a stamp duty hike.

Surveyors in most parts of the UK recorded less interest from homebuyers, with a net balance of 22 per cent reporting a fall in new buyer enquiries.

However, a shortage of homes on the market means prices are set to keep rising over the next few years, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors report predicted.

They expect prices to increase by between 3.0 and 5.5 per cent over the course of the next five years, while rents are likely to soar by around 3.4 per cent in the year to come as landlords pass extra costs onto tenants.

Meanwhile the Halifax’s latest housing index, also published last week, showed that property values in the three months to April saw the smallest annual increase since November 2015.

The mortgage lender said UK house prices were 9.2 per cent higher than in the same period a year earlier.

Between February and April, average property prices across the UK increased by 1.5 per cent on the previous quarter, marking the smallest rise since last autumn, Halifax - one of Britain's biggest lenders - said.

From March to April, house values fell 0.8 per cent, with consumer confidence in the market falling to its lowest for over a year, Halifax said.

That was the second monthly fall this year - prices dipped 1.5 per cent in February.

As a result, Halifax said the average property price was £212,321 in April, compared to the record £213,945 recorded in March.

Hot cakes: The average number of days to sell a property decreased to 60 in April this year, says Rightmove

Halifax also found that demand continued to outstrip supply, with new instructions from sellers falling in March and stock levels around 20 per cent lower than a year ago.